Buckdog

You see .... creeping 'Canadianism' is a real and persistent threat to everything that Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter hold dear!!

Yes because we all love waiting lists and people dying.

Now I don't like the US system but there has to be something better like a mixed system Private-public

if the U.S. uses the Canadian Model, where will we Canadians go to get good healthcare???

when Airlines have reduced rates for Canadians flying to Minni to go to the Mayo Clinic..that says something about our healthcare system...

What about insurance companies being charged with murder because they refuse to cover life saving procedures, they deem "experimental"?

What does that say about US healthcare?

there has to be something better like a mixed system Private-public

But that's what the US has now. That's exactly the problem.

In the 1960s Saskatchewan had a network of community clinics while in England cooperative medicine was a major feature part of the early NHS. It is true that socialized medicine is not exactly the same thing as state medicine although there are obvious overlaps. However I believe most Canadians would hold to a view (that would probably simplify to) that "half a cake is better than none". Canadian health care gives us a ranking according to the World Health Organization of number 30 in the world with the Americans at #37. So both outcomes are roughly similar although we spend about half as much per person for the same results. Of course in some parts of the southern US like Mississippi infant mortality rate for blacks have risen to 17/100,000 which about the same as Sri Lanka and Russia. The overall American rate for such infant death is about 40 percent higher than the UK and 250 percent higher than Sweden. Even state financed medicine with its problems is preferable to the overpriced US system.

huff and plainjoe ... all of the time you have spent at SDA and listening to John Gormley has fogged up your sensibility.

A system that is accessible to all is better than a system that is accessible to few. I guess you call it socialist if all are able to receive health care and capitalistic if only the richest can afford it. Call me a socialist then.

You're making the correct point when referring to the 42 million Americans who do not have health insurance AND all those people who have to declare bankruptcy (the LARGEST single reason for personal bankruptcy in the USA is the inability to pay hospital cost),

Alot of people point to wait times as a reason that our system is "failing", but I often wonder the wait time in the US system truly would be from start to surgery including insurance filing, awaiting approval, dealing with appeals. How many INSURED Americans are being forced into a de facto cue or outright denied expensive procedures?

Although insurance companies in Canada "seem" to function with a wee bit more humanity then in the USA, I still would not want them in charge of mine or Canada's health care.

The Canadian Right, led by the CTF has gone to great length to try and vilify the Canadian public system! One of them earlier here posted "... and people dying." - Comparing the Canadian model to what is happening with American health care is a huge stretch ... and I haven't even mentioned what percentage of US GNP goes into 'health care' compared to what is expended in Canada. Clearly the Canadian system has the kind of glitches you would expect for an aging baby boom population that health administrators and provincial governments did not adequately plan for ... shame on them! But the Canadian 'Right' should just shut the hell up!

one thing about Socialists, they all want gov't paid for healthcare...doesn't matter if it is poor or not...what is it with you people? why can't Canada strive for a better system? you are all happy as long as everyone suffers the same....

"why can't Canada strive for a better system?" ... you mean the kind you pay for and if you can't afford it ... you just die?

Piss off ....

Plain Joe, I think we all striving for better health care. It is a system that is under more scrutiny than any other publicly funded ministry.

I don't believe in overhauling an entire system, and hoping that the new system we install would be better. But if that is the line of thinking we are going with, how could a different system be any better than the one we already have? How would it benefit all citizens? And how will it be fair? And to argue by saying any changes will be an improvement, I don't see how.

How would a private system take more money out of tax payers pockets? The way I see it, it won't, it will just cost us tax payers more in the long run.

first off, take a closer look at some european models...where there are privately owned clinics who are paid with gov't money...

our system is top heavy, administration costs are huge here in Canada. that is where the Private clinics shine...they are paid for their work not shuffling paper.

I'm not sure about the extent of union involvement in the European health systems..but our's is one big mess because of Unions..costs have gone through the roof and productivity has gone down..it takes more people to maintain a hospital in canada then it used to...and now most things are automated, no one is scrubbing the floors with mops, they have polishers and sweepers doing that...money that should be spent on patient care is going to other depts.

Patient care should be the # 1 concern..and until that happens our health system will faulter..and that wont happen until money is directed to the proper depts...and socialists wont let that happen because they are in the Unions pockets.

sunnyside you said you are socialists, well you are part of the problem, keep danceing to the union's tune...

leftdog: you are such as ass. if there are 29 other nations with better healthcare than ours why can't we strive to be #1, shouldn't we be looking at what makes them better? but that might mean changing Tommy's plan...that he copied from europe...you keep living in the past. wouldn't want to upset the Unions. and direct some of the money to real treatments and patient care...
Have a Happy New Year

joe ... your right wing rhetoric DOES NOT measure up to reality!